Whistling past the graveyard…and wondering if the revolution will ever begin.

How’s America Doing?

So says the forum’s new Human Capital Index, which rates the United States 16th globally in how well it harnesses the power of its people. The nation gets good scores for education and opportunity. But the disappointing overall outcome is because of things like “non-communicable diseases.”

Before you holler “gross” and click elsewhere, these are non-communicable ailments – things like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The United States ranks 112th out of 122, for example, on the obesity scale, and similarly low when it comes to stress. The overall “Health and Wellness” score places the United States 43rd out of the countries studied, with a particularly poor rating for the “business impact” of disease overall (including the communicable type, where we are 65th…gross!).

Sorta at odds with our “greatest country in the world” self-image. Reminds me of this:

Tim Zimmermann

I am a Washington-DC based writer, interested in politics, history and adventure. I am a Correspondent for Outside magazine, Associate Producer and Co-Writer of the documentary Blackfish, a former Senior Editor and Diplomatic Correspondent for US News & World Report, and author of The Race (Houghton Mifflin, 2002).